Manager, Sourcing (Apparel)

Purpose

Key player in Sourcing in driving Sourcing’s vision to be the Most Agile, Most Competitive, Most Digitalized & Cleanest Supply Base in the industry. Drive day-to-day together with functional counterparts on Planning, Development, Production Management, Engineering & Manufacturing Innovation, Costing, SEA, Materials (End-to-End) for specific country or assignment.

Key Responsibilities

• Independently manage production, quality, production availability and manufacturing efficiency, escalating critical issues and driving resolution.
• Manage factory relationships and apply the right resources, processes, tools and strategies to achieve operational excellence.
• Roll out and implement adidas best practices and directions at responsible factories.
• Influence factory production and quality middle management to drive change and achieve production objectives.
• Make day-to-day decisions within defined scope while balancing risks and escalating complex issues.
• Validate and confirm Tier 1 capacity offers and follow up on availability performance when constraints arise.
• Support product-development sampling from Proto Sample through Size Set Sample.
• Collaborate with Tier 1 suppliers to ensure virtual and physical samples meet adidas standards and design intent.
• Carry out Direct Development audits at key milestones with the Development Manager.
• Identify Create to Value opportunities and share production feedback, improvement areas, best practices and risks to improve future development.
• Provide input to the digitalized development-to-production handover package.
• Ensure sourcing operations comply with adidas’ Responsible Sourcing & Purchasing Policy, adidas standards and legal requirements.
• Foster a culture of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Ability to identify issues, analyse facts and make correct decisions regarding complex production issues while maintaining required standards.
• Strong presentation, negotiation, influencing, interpersonal and communication skills.
• Strong leadership skills and ability to work in multidimensional teams.
• Fluent written and spoken English.
• Strong MS Office skills.

Qualifications

• University degree in product creation or a related area.
• Minimum 5+ years of work experience in similar positions.